Burbank High School Graduating Class of 1967 blog. See photos and read messages from the past and present!

Sunday, January 6, 2008

The Storm

Carol Nicholls Lebrecht had quite a day when the storm hit the Sacramento area, so I asked if we could post her email:

January 4, 2008Hi Cathy,

I went in to work this morning and got downtown Sacramento by 8:00 am. I could barely cross the street with the wind and rain. My umbrella was not much help. I felt like I was battling a 70 pound weight. Finally made it inside and within a half hour the electricity went out in the building. We had an interview that morning and luckily one office had lights. The poor woman had walked over in all that wind and rain to get there. And afterwards she was going to have to walk all the way back to her car again, because lightrail was down. I had to send her down the dark stairwell from the eight floor, because our elevators were not working either. They didn't let us go home until 10:00 am.

One of the girls in my Unit was walking to the same garage across the street as me. She waited so we could both go together. It is a good thing, because now the wind was so bad that you couldn't even hardly walk forward. She is a small woman and ran back under the overhang of the building. She told me "I'm scared!" Other people were arm in arm crossing the street so I told her to take my arm and I would get her across the road. It wasn't eazy because the wind had blown my hair in my face. We had to stop a couple times, but we finally made it across the road.

Then I had to walk up five floors to my car. I was pretty beat. I only got about five miles on the freeway when I saw a sign that said "Prepare to stop. Freeway closed ahead. Take alternate route. I was in the right hand lane so it was no problem to take the next offramp. But other people did the same and we were at a stand still with boulevard lights out and trees down. I looked at the freeway and the cars were moving at a pretty good pace.

But I thought, if I got on the freeway I would probably get stuck, so I stayed in the heavy traffic, barely moving until it finally cleared. Then it would jam up again. The one hour trip lasted 1 hour and 45 minutes.

When I got home our backyard fence was down so luckily my husband's friend was over and under the heavy wind and rain they built the fence back up within a couple of hours. His friend's house electricity was out and he had come over to warm up. Bet they are pretty wet and cold right now.

Yes, it is storming Sacramento today. Did you get much rain?

Sunday update from Carol:

My youngest son, Jay, who lives in Sacramento called and asked if he and his family could spend the night. Their electricity had been off all day. I have two guests rooms now that my sons have moved out and gotten married. First, thing Jay says is "I get my old room back, right?" I told him, "No, you get Brandon's room; because it is bigger and has a tv hooked to cable". He muttered something about him having to sleep in a strange room. Here after having moved out seven or eight years ago.

My middle son, Brandon, lives in Loomis. His electricity was out also all day Friday, but their heat had been on until 10:30 am in the morning and stayed warmer for them throughout the day. They huddled under their blankets that night and the next day at 9:30 am had a birthday party for my grandaughter, Meghan who was turning 3, at their house. Luckily they had planned to only have a continental breakfast. Jay and Barb stopped at Starbucks on the way over to pickup some hot coffee to try to keep the guests warm. The babies attending had jackets on and snow hats. The older kids just ran around and kept warm that way. The party lasted a couple of hours. Brandon's electricity was restored at 10:30 pm that night. I still am not able to get a hold of Jason so his electicity must still be out. They talked about bringing their trailer over and parking it in the driveway for the night.

My husband worked as Cal Expo Police at the gun show. He said it was still storming with heavy winds and rain all day down in Sacramento at the California State Fair site. While driving home he was about eight miles away, when a car jumped over the median and flying thru the air, hit the car in front of him. With good reflexes he was able to weave in and out of the smashing cars, four in all, and then get all the cars moved to the side of the road until the Roseville Police showed up. He thought that the 70 year old woman who had caused the accident had realized she was going to miss her left turn, so made a hard left and hit the median so hard causing it to be airborne and fly thru the air into the traffic going in the opposite direction. They took her off in an ambulance; because she was so shookup.

Today is Sunday and they say another storm is on the way. I am greatful that no one has gotten hurt from trees slaming thru homes, and the wild weather. The next storm is coming, but is not suppose to be as bad.Let's hope not.

--- end ---

And here was my response:

Wow Carol - what a day you had!!! Here is a link to a short video of some storm damage a little north of me. It was pretty intense, not for me so much as my home and my work never lost power and I was inside during the worst of it.

Linda my daughter went though Hurricane Ivan a couple of years ago. Her little house was near the water so they went to the in-laws who lived in a big brick home inland. Well, around 2 am as the eye hit Pensacola, their roof ripped off and rain came pouring in, so they had to all jump in their cars to find another shelter which turned out to be a church down the road. The next morning, it looked like a bomb had gone off and when they got back to their little house, everything was fine including the 2 cats in the bathroom! However, on the next street, houses were gone, washed out to sea and sadly, a few folks were dead that didn't leave. When I went back a couple of months later, the damage was unbelievable!

Plus, I went to New Orleans to do some volunteer work for a few weeks after Katrina and that was horrible - another bomb it looked like - still does in some areas - a political hot potato in so many ways - very sad for the folks esp in the 9th ward.

Anyway, in perspective, this storm is 'mild' unless of course a tree falls on you or your house!!